Blaming the Baby Boomers is a popular pastime among Millennials nowadays. Apparently, the problems of our present day are mostly their fault. They allowed government to grow and metastasize, and saddled us with loads of debt. They bought into crazy-lazy theories about overpopulation, and didn’t have enough children. They soaked up all the perks of the Reagan years and left their kids jobless with expensive, worthless degrees.

Now they’re planning to collect billions in pensions and Social Security and Medicare, and younger generations will work themselves to the bone to pay for it, while their retired parents (along with non-parent peers who spent all their own earnings on themselves, and are now helping themselves to ours) enjoy shuffleboard and vacations to the South of France. And then we’ll probably just lie down and die of treatable diseases in our broken-down, two-bit apartments. By that time, you see, the coffers will be emptier than empty, and death will be the only thing we can still afford. Dang Boomers.

I’m being dramatic of course, but I confess that I am not immune to anti-Boomer angst. We’ve all been privy to those conversations when an older relative (perhaps freshly returned from a Caribbean cruise) complains about the medical procedure that Medicare won’t fully cover even though they need it. The griping about how Social Security or pensions are too small. It’s hard to resist unleashing a torrent of indignation on such people. Do they really not see how entitled they are?